“We’ve paid a heavy price for having a president whose priority is
expanding his own power,” then-senator Barack Obama proclaimed on
the campaign trail in 2007. As president, he promised, “I’ll turn
the page on the imperial presidency.”

And yet, as Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Charlie Savage
documents in his new book Power Wars, from the early days
of the Obama administration, “policy choices that departed from
Bush-era programs dwindled, and those that continued- or even
expanded- Bush-era programs rose.” Indeed, as president, Obama has
launched more than seven times as many drone strikes as his
predecessor, including the remote-control execution of an American
citizen. He’s continued and expanded dragnet domestic surveillance
programs based on a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act and
launched two wars without authorization from Congress. Much has
changed in the Obama era, but the imperial presidency endures and
thrives.

Based on interviews with more than 150 current and former
government officials, Savage’s Power Wars stands as the
most comprehensive account yet of the internal deliberations within
the Obama administration. It’s an indispensable source for anyone
seeking to understand the factors that drove such powerful
continuity between two seemingly very different presidents. Please
join us for a lively and timely discussion of the politics and law
of presidential power.